


mr. ally of justice

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: F/M, bleak and highly wack XD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:05:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: On the table, the coffee grew cold.





	mr. ally of justice

**Author's Note:**

> birthday fanfic but late 4 my own birthday and late for feb 15th aswell, alas. glad i decided this was worth salvaging though cuz it's 420 words now

She hesitated.

“But-” Her smile remained unbroken. “But you don’t love me. Well?” Ulala demanded, leaning over, and felt something inside her tighten; exhaustion wrung out of her like water from an old rag. She swallowed, tasting bitter, and tried again, with newfound venom, “Aren’t I right? You’re so serious, I’m shocked you still know how to joke around with me. But I’ve had it. This isn’t funny. Don’t you think it’s time to stop?”

He looked like he wanted to shake his head and say, _stop what? What joke? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Serizawa! I simply don’t,_ but the veneer of oblivion gave way to the crumbling exhaustion beneath, and she sunk in her chair, holding back her own prepared retort, the urge to hit something. He would’ve looked away, affronted, and she would’ve laughed and left and the next day they would forget the conversation had ever happened.

Too late now, though. Their double act was no good without an audience to impress. They’d both missed their cues, and now there sat a silence, a wedge driven between them by the weight of words bearing more honesty than their flimsy bravados could endure. Hopeless, both of them, chained by pretenses and fear, tiptoeing the rope’s edge but never quite making the fall. Her endless misfortunes, his mounting responsibilities. _Why not me_ , was the question they kept asking, even though they knew: _of course it won’t be me— of course you won’t look back at me— that’s the whole point._

Why shouldn’t it be you? Why shouldn’t it be us?

She winced. She didn’t know.

“No,” Katsuya said, not blinking, because there was no point in lying, and brushed his palm against the top of her knuckles— gently, but like touching glass. Like there was something to prove, a point to be made in all of this. She quivered, just the barest hint, and he stilled before easing into one of his kindly smiles, the big-brother one he gave her sometimes, to show that he knew better. “But we could try.”

Frustrated, Ulala curled her fingers in until her nails dug hard enough to sting, and the pain was supposed to remind her of something, but whatever it amounted to wasn’t much at all, because in the end she conceded. “We could.”

There was no point in lying, but they could sugarcoat the truth if they wanted. Her smile didn’t falter.

On the table, the coffee grew cold. They were both so tired of waiting.


End file.
